New band: Dublin electronic duo Subaltern

Despite the somewhat ’90s sounding name Subaltern (which reminds me of Altern-8 though it means quite different things) deal in modern electronica. They are Alex Lawes & Sean Merrigan, two Irish guys who are really into analogue gear with a penchant for “doing everything the long way around”. They’ve been making music together for a few years and recently supported Felix Martin of Hot Chip and White Collar Boy with a live hardware/Ableton setup.

So far, they have two tunes for us, both very different from each other. The newest, ‘Ephemeral’ unlike the title suggests, is a six-minute somewhat dense synth and bleep track with some operatic vocal samples and dramatic strings. ‘Otherwise’ shifts in a different tempo more akin to Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs’ style of synth headiness.

They’re playing Electric Picnic and all which prompted this silly bio.